Shot In The Dark - Politics and Current Events in Minnesota and Beyond

Saturday, January 24, 2004

Tear Down The...er...Never Mind - The kids and I went to the Ice Palace last night.

It was cold, and a little windy, and utterly wonderful. Everyone should try it.

However, I was prompted to check out the walls - the walls that, according to the Nick Coleman via Fraters, are such ghastly symbols of our disdain for the poor and disadvantaged.

I checked out the immense ice walls surrounding the huge courtyard and the gorgeous central palace structure - and I think I figured out what they're for:

To make it look like a castle.

Hopefully that'll put this controversy to rest. Thanks.
posted by Mitch Berg 1/24/2004 03:56:15 PM

Friday, January 23, 2004

"But Dissent Is Patriotic!" - The commander of the British Army's 1st Battalion/42nd Highland Regiment (The Black Watch) has attacked Parliament's anti-war back-benchers and the protesters they supported:
"While careful to make clear that the Government's decision to wait until the last minute was understandable, Lt Col Cowan said it was partly forced on it by anti-war feeling among its own backbenchers.
'As a result, many items of equipment were not available in the right numbers, in the right place, in the right working order at the time they should have been and I think that is widely acknowledged,' he said.
'I think there is a clear realisation that if a decision had been taken earlier then the right kit could have been in place, but there is a clear understanding as to why those decisions were not made.'
Lt Col Cowan's comments, in an interview with The Scotsman newspaper, came the day after the MoD's leading civil servant told MPs that body armour did not arrive because Mr Hoon did not authorise preparations until late November 2002."
Note to the left: "Opposing the war but supporting the troops" should not involve endangering them. Try to work on that.

(Via the Captain)
posted by Mitch Berg 1/23/2004 08:45:55 AM

Virtue Bought Cheap - Alfred Fingulin adds this thought to the Saint Paul City Council's specious anti-Patriot Act resolution on Wednesday:
If the St Paul City Council really means it, then instruct the St Paul Police Department not to comply with law enforcement action requested under the Patriot Act. That would be a gutsy move.
Very true.

It would involve the St. Paul DFL putting their chances of being re-elected where their mouths are.

It's very like the St. Paul DFL to take grandious but supercilious symbolic actions, but leave the beef out. It's not for nothing that Kathleen Soliah felt so at home here.
posted by Mitch Berg 1/23/2004 08:38:37 AM

Standard Standards - My kids - a daughter in seventh grade and a son in fifth - know who Winston Churchill was, why Richard Nixon left office, why the Cold War ended, and why Bill Clinton was impeached. They've heard of Churchill's Dunkirk speech, Kennedy's Moon speech, Reagan's "Tear Down This Wall" speech. They're fuzzy on James Madison, but they do know something about why the Constitution was written and what the Bill of Rights are.

Problem is, it's for damn sure they didn't learn it in school. It's a safe bet that the tiniest possible percentage of their classmates know - or have even heard of any of these things.

They and all their classmates are perfectly literate, however, in the history of Martin Luther King. Not to knock that, of course; King was a pivotal American figure, and his importance can't be underestimated. Leaving aside his social importance, his skill as an orator is something to study from a purely technical perspective.

The other day, someone played a snippet of the "I Have A Dream" speech on TV. My son recited it along with the footage, word for word; he can't even recite lyrics from the Top 40 that faithfully - and it reminded me of an episode of Ira Glass' "This American Life" in which a white social studies teacher from Chicago (I think) arranged a trip for his almost-entirely African-American students to the Washington Mall.

The teacher brought them to the exact spot where Rev. King had stood, and started playing the speech on a large boom box.

And he was shocked at the students' reaction.

They were bored stiff.

It was just another speech - one they'd heard hundreds of times in their inner city school - and, other than playing over footage of water cannon and soldiers escorting black student school, it seemed to have little meaning to the students. King's speech seems to have come to float above history, a self-contained moment that has become isolated from meaning in the process two generations of being taught as a Great Event in its own right. Students know the speech. They know that the speech had something to do with black people not having had the same rights white people had. Before that...?

Which is exactly why I am so happy that a group of Minnesota academics - including the my fellow Northern Alliance muj King Banaian of the SCSU Scholars - have issued this letter supporting Governor Pawlenty's initiative to revamp the state's social studies standards.

This piece in the lede expands on the example of the King speech:
But part of the problem stems from a curricular philosophy that makes Social Studies a field unto itself, with history and geography coming into play only insofar as they supply materials for discussing contemporary issues. For the new Minnesota Standards, by contrast, Social Studies means the four specific fields of knowledge for which the Legislature has mandated standards: History, Geography, Civics and Government, and Economics. Schooling does indeed prepare students to be citizens, but the best preparation is broad-based, not issue-specific; students who have a sense of who and where they are in the world – a template of human time and space – have a framework for accommodating new questions, and making their own judgments.
Exactly.

Leave aside for a moment the fact that I have doubts about the current model of education in both public and mainstream private schools - that's fodder for another post. The professors are right - you can not teach history, politics, geography and sociology in a vaccuum, divorced from the society that creates the things that you study.

posted by Mitch Berg 1/23/2004 07:38:23 AM

The Ugliest American - Today, I'm ashamed to be an American.

Maureen Dowd may have just written the stupidest column ever to grace the NYT - a column full of the sort of myopic provincialism that, had it been written by an Idaho Republican, would have been held up as a prime example of Red state redneck ignorance by the likes of...well, Maureen Dowd.
You wonder how many votes he scared off with that testosterone festival: the taunting message, the self-righteous geographic litany of support? The Philippines. Thailand. Italy. Spain. Poland. Denmark. Bulgaria. Ukraine. Romania. The Netherlands. Norway. El Salvador.

Can you believe President Bush is still pushing the cockamamie claim that we went to war in Iraq with a real coalition rather than a gaggle of poodles and lackeys?
I'm not asking Dowd to have the faintest clue about the histories of 35 other nations...

...no. That's not true. I am. If a newspaper wants to make a serious claim to be America's "Newspaper of Record", either Dowd or one of her editors had better be literate enough about world history to at least know that Dowd's statement is moronic, if not precisely why.

But I don't like Dowd. I'm going to go into the precisely why.

The Professor quoted Tim Blair:
Reader Matt F. writes: " didn't know that poodles were eligible for service in the Australian SAS. Please clarify.? That line confused me, too, Matt. As far as I was aware, the only role for poodles in our SAS was as occasional target practice (they're cheap and speedy).
The British, Australian and New Zealand militaries have some of the only troops in the world that can keep up with the US. Their Special Air Service (SAS) are among the best special forces in the world - our Delta Force is modeled after the SAS. The British Royal Marines invented the term "Commandos" as we understand it today.

The Dutch? Forget the wooden clogs - the 1,100 Dutch troops in Iraq include their Marine battalion, which spent most of the Cold War with the British Marine Commandos, as well as with the USMC. While the unionized Dutch military has taken a lot of flak over the years, their Marines are pretty much exempt from this.

How about the Scandinavians? While Norway's government far enough left to keep Dennis Kucinich purring happily, their troops are reportedly just fine. Their Special Forces operated with ours in Afghanistan, and likely are doing so today. The Danes are even better-regarded; their Army earned a lot of respect from US troops in the Balkans, and their special forces, the Jaegerkorpset, are among the best in NATO. Both nations learned something in WWII that Maureen Dowd hasn't had to - that pacifism is fine (both nations are renowned for their pacifistic governments), but if you don't back up your pacifism with a strong will to defend it, it's really worthless. Norway and Denmark's militaries are among the best in Europe.

You'd think an alleged feminist like Dowd would pay special attention to the Poles. Leave aside the fact that the Poles have one of the longest and most distinguished histories of fighting for liberty - their own and others - in all of Europe. Forget even that they have nearly 3,000 of their troops there already, actively fighting. You'd think a "genuine feminist" like Dowd would know that Poland's GROM special forces unit, which fought in both Gulf Wars, is one of the very few special forces units to include women.

3,000 South Koreans operate in Iraq today, including their Special Forces and Marines. They've spent fifty years training to fight Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il's immense military, in one of the most dismal climates on earth.

Lapdogs? Poodles?

Jason Van Steenwyck talks about more allies - the Fijians, who developed a reputation for courage in the Golan Heights in the seventies that, according to Steenwyck, they still earn today, among others.

So look at the list of nations with troops in Iraq. Check out the nations that have histories of reclaiming their liberties from brutal dictatorships - Romania, Bulgaria, Nicaragua, Spain, Lithuania, and on and on. Nations that have sacrificed enough blood for their own liberty to overflow the cocktail glasses at every Manhattan club that Maureen Dowd has ever closed down.

I thought it was Conservatives that were supposed to be ignorant, stupid and provincial?

Dowd is, of course, shilling for the idea that the United Nations would have given us "legitimacy" that 35 other nations wouldn't. So what would getting UN "Support" have gotten us? 3,000 French troops, maybe the same number of Germans. Some of the UN's usual suspects - most UN peacekeeping missions include a battalion (500 or so) of Swedes or Irish or Brazilians or Indians. Helpful? Sure. And so would a battalian of Martian Gravity Tanks, which would be just as likely, because as long as the UN vote was controlled by a French veto, and the French were operating under their strategy of containing US power, there would be no UN support if President Bush spent 14 months or 14 years begging for it.

Get over it, MoDo.

(Via the Professor)
posted by Mitch Berg 1/23/2004 06:47:10 AM

Perspective - Jay Reding recaps a point I'd love to hammer into the heads of some Patriot Act opponents - most notably the Saint Paul City Council:
"For instance, take the infamous Section 215 which allows law enforcement to look through business records such as library records without notifiying the suspect. Civil libertarians have cried foul over this provision, despite the fact it takes a court order to do so, no library records have ever been searched, and such provisions have already been used in other criminal cases. Library records were searched in the hunt for Andrew Cunanan, the man who shot fashion designer Gianni Versace in 1997, and to hunt down the Zodiac killer in New York in 1990. Yet no one raised a fuss about these searches. It is clear that there is a direct double standard at play, fueled by ignorance of the law."
I've long noticed - one never need bother askng for specifics when the left starts yapping about the Patriot Act. They rarely know any - or frequently "know" things, like Jose Padilla's incarceration, that have nothing to do with the Patriot Act.

Don't get me wrong. Speaking as someone who was a libertarian (in fact, a Libertarian) before John Ashcroft assumed office, I am all in favor of being ferocious in defense of any infringements on civil liberties. But that defense has to be reasonable. There are aspects of the Patriot Act that I find troubling - but they are the sort of thing you settle via legislation or the courts, rather than by empty, and in the final analysis cowardly actions like the Saint Paul City Council's resolution on Wednesday.
posted by Mitch Berg 1/23/2004 06:35:40 AM

Credit Where Credit Is Due - Reader Shawn Sarazin sends this piece from the Chicago Sun Times

Last month, Hale DeMar of Wilmette, Illinois shot a burglar in his house. The media reported that the gun was unregistered - as the Sun-Times report says,
And, in a move that has drawn criticism, DeMar was cited with breaking Wilmette's ban on handguns and with failing to update his firearm owner's identification card.

The misdemeanors are unlikely to bring jail time. Wilmette Police Chief George Carpenter did not criticize DeMar for protecting his family but said homes are safer without handguns.
DeMar wrote a letter to the Sun-Times.

It's a classic. I have added all emphases:
Village Trustees ... Stick to Parade Schedules & Planting our Parks

Many of us have experienced a sense of violation upon returning to our homes, only to find that someone else has been there. Someone else has trespassed in our bedrooms, looting and stealing that which is readily replaced. Many of us, still haunted by that violation, will never again have a sense of security in our own homes. Few, however, have awakened to realize that they had been violated as they slept in their beds, doors locked, as family dogs patrolled their homes. For me, the seconds until I found my children still safely tucked in their beds were horrifying. The thought that a young child may have been hurt or abducted was incomprehensible.

The police were called and in routine fashion they came, took the report and with little concern left, promising to increase surveillance. Little comfort, since the invader now had keys to our home and our automobiles. The police informed me that this was not an uncommon event in east Wilmette and offered their condolences.

What is one to do when a criminal proceeds, undeterred by a 90-pound German shepherd, an alarm system and a property ... lit up like an outdoor stadium? And now, he had my house keys and an inventory of things he'd like to call his own. Would the police patrol my dead-end street as effectively the second time as they had the first? Would my small children be unharmed the next time? Would the career criminal be satisfied with another automobile, another television or would he feel the need, once again, to climb the staircase up to the bedrooms, perhaps for a watch or a ring or a wallet, again risking little?

Would my children wake to find a masked figure, clad in black, in their bedroom doorway, a vision that might haunt them for years? Would the police come again and fill out yet another report, and at what point should I feel comfortable that the 'bad guy' got everything he wanted and wouldn't return again, a third time?

I went to the safe where my licensed and registered gun was kept, loaded it for the very first time and tucked it under the mattress of my bed. I assured my frightened children ''that daddy would deal with the bad guy ... if he ever returned.'' Little did I imagine that this brazen animal was waiting in the backyard bushes as I tucked my children into bed.

Fifteen minutes after bedtime, the alarm went off. Three minutes after the alarm was triggered, the alarm company alerted the police to the situation and 10 minutes later the first police car pulled up to my home, but only after another call was made to 911, by a trembling, half-naked father. I suppose some would have grabbed their children and cowered in their bedroom for 13 minutes, praying that the police would get there in time to stop the criminal from climbing the stairs and confronting the family in their bedroom, dreading the sound of a bedroom door being kicked in. That's not the fear I wanted my children to experience, nor is it the cowardly act that I want my children to remember me by.

Until you are shocked by a piercing alarm in the middle of the night and met in your kitchen by a masked invader as your children shudder in their beds, until you confront that very real nightmare, please don't suggest that some village trustee knows better and he/she can effectively task the police to protect your family from the miscreants that this society has produced.

This career criminal had been arrested thirty times. He was wanted in Georgia and for parole violations in Minnesota. How many family homes had he violated, how many innocent lives were affected, how many police reports went into some back office file cabinet, only to become some abstract statistic? How is it that rabid animals like this are free to roam the streets, violating our homes and threatening the safety of our children?

If my actions have spared only one family from the distress and trauma that this habitual criminal has caused hundreds of others, then I have served my civic duty and taken one evil creature off of our streets, something that our impotent criminal justice system had failed to do, despite some thirty odd arrests, plea bargains and suspended sentences.

Hale DeMar, Wilmette
I can find no online reference to a Hale DeMar legal defense fund. Hopefully he won't need one.

Alan Gottlieb, president of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, notes:
"Even Wilmette Police Chief George Carpenter has admitted in a statement quoted by the Wilmette Life community newspaper that the handgun ban ordinance has seen limited use as a law enforcement tool." He also told [Sarah Brady, in an open letter to the gun control diva] that an on-line poll by the Chicago Tribune revealed that an overwhelming 83 percent of the respondents oppose the notion that municipalities can ban handgun ownership, while only 17 percent support that approach.
Yet another nail in the coffin of gun control's credibility.
posted by Mitch Berg 1/23/2004 06:32:59 AM

Thursday, January 22, 2004

Trivial Pursuit - The Saint Paul City Council passed an anti-Patriot Act resolution yesterday.

My commentary about my moonbat councilman Jay Benanav (DFL - the Merriam Park People's Collective) is well-worn enough to skip here.

This is about Councilman Dave Thune (DFL - West End). I'd always known Dave Thune to be relatively reasonable for a DFLer.

In the future, I'll probably know it again - and, just to be clear, I say that with an implied smile. Dave's a guitar player and a fellow expat North Dakotan (we are taking over). His predilection for DFL politics only slightly tarnishes the fact that he's an otherwise good guy...

He made a posting this morning on E-Democracy's "Saint Paul Discussion" forum regarding the council's action. I'll chalk this post up to a winter vacation from reason. Perhaps Thune is sitting on a beach in Cozumel right now, taking a big hit off the Deanbong and washing it down with a long belt of Kucinich and soda.

My response - in classical "fisking" format - is pretty much the one I posted to the forum, with a few better things I thought up in the shower.

Councilman Thune wrote:
"Has the Federal government obtained copies of St. Paul residents' reading
history from the St. Paul public library?"

As a member of the St. Paul Library Board of Directors I asked this question today. The Director of the library could not answer "yes" or even say "no" because to do so would place her in violation of federal law!
As well it should. But that's hardly a funtion of the Patriot Act.
Now if you trust that the government ONLY asks these questions of suspected terrorists who take out books on building weapons of mass destruction, then you are too young to remember J. Edgar Hoover and the Nixon/LBJ/Vietnam years. The federal government did in fact spy on U.S. citizens, keep files on peace protesters and wiretap Martin Luther King Jr.
There are many possible responses to this paragraph:
I was probably 12 during the Church Commission hearings, so yeah, I do remember them. To some extent, their restrictions were a reasonable response to the excesses of Hoover, Nixon, and (do try to be fair) FDR, Truman and Kennedy. To another extent, they overreached, putting up statutory blocks between agencies that could have been better handled by stronger oversight. As knee jerk reactions go, it was like most - some good, some bad.
However, Dave, everyone on this list is old enough to know about the RICO Act, or the Crime Bill of 1994. Both of those sets of laws impose burdens on civil liberties far beyond anything in the Patriot Act - in fact, most of the most noxious parts of the Patriot Act are the parts where the government wants the same power against suspected terrorists that they already have against suspected drug traffickers and racketeers. And yet there is almost no hue and cry from the "League of Cities". Why? The "War on Drugs", unlike Iraq, is based on a huge set of lies. The "War on Drugs" has killed more Americans than Vietnam, two orders of magnitude more than have died in Iraq, and has devastated the cores of most American cities in ways that we'd never tolerate the military doing to a foreign country. Why are the *same measures* so tolerable against drug dealers (who deal in a purely consensual commodity) and "racketeers" (a term whose definition is a lot more flexible than "terrorist", depending on the US attorney involved), but not against those who want to - bulletin! - kill us all?

The measures are no less noxious, because in most instances they are *the same*. So where are the Dave Thunes and Jay Benanavs and Leagues of Cities? Where is the outrage? Where *were* all those ardent libertarians in 1994? Where *were* they when RICO grew into a one-size-fits all legal sledgehammer?

The answer, I guess, is "waiting for a Republican administration".
The resolution we passed today at the city council is the same one endorsed by the National League of Cities and hundreds of other cities and towns
across the country.
And given the political agenda of the "National League of Cities", its motivations are the same, too.
I happen to believe we cannot trust the government.
Indeed we can't. At ANY level.

ALL levels of government lie about *everything*, *all the time*.

In fact, ask yourself this question: "How can you tell when *any* government official is lying?" Answer: "His/her lips are moving!".

Seems overly general, doesn't it?

What you really mean to say, Dave, is "The City Council, being DFL, is playing its part in the 2004 election campaign", isn't it?
How can we trust an administration which lied about the need for war in
Iraq,
They didn't.
sent our children, parents and siblings to fight, die and be wounded
even as we killed Iraqi civilians just as dead as did Saddam
It's been shown that fewer Iraqi civilians died during the period of the war than Hussein himself would have murdered in an equivalent time. It's for sure it's not happening anymore.

Ah, but they're just Arabs. Who cares about them, right?
So if I were to stand up and say as an elected official that the government is spying on my constuents, will I be arrested?
Quick, Dave - name the officials at ANY level of government in the US that have been arrested for any such thing?

Show us the camps full of dissenters on the Idaho plains. Show us the disappeared critics. Show us the shut-down newspapers? (these last two happen all the time in this country, actually - on our college campuses. Dissent from liberal orthodoxy is punished, dissident newspapers are shut down - is the SPCC going to pass a resolution about THIS repression, which has caused more damage to liberty than the Patriot Act ever will)?

Michael Moore and Cher are not lying in a mass grave in Wyoming next to two hundred WTO protesters - they are both earning way more than either of them deserve for their meager talent. Two of the biggest, most accusatory, inflammatory moonbats in American politics today - Dennis Kucinich and Al Sharpton - are running for president. That's how we oppress dissent in this country. The Minneapolis City Council - which preceded the SPCC in lunacy by quite some time - didn't disappear in the middle of the night.

And they never will!

Don't get me wrong; there are parts of the Patriot Act that DO overreach. I keep asking liberal friends of mine to name them; none can.
St. Paul has stood up in defense of the Bill of Rights.
No. Saint Paul stood up and said "George Bush is a ickypoopyface.". No more.
Don't trivialize this action.
How better to say "It is trivial"?

The SPCC should stick to debating noise easements.

posted by Mitch Berg 1/22/2004 08:12:19 AM

Everybody's Doing It - It's the first ever "Shot In The Dark Poll" of public opinion!

Remember - no wagering!

Who is is the *last* person you'd trust with the Presidency?
Carrot Top
Howard "Mad How" Dean
Pauly Shore
George W. Bush
Dennis Perrin
Hugh Hewitt
Eli Pariser, spammer in chief for "MoveOn.org"
Katherine Lanpher
Sedalina's new boss "James"
Michael Moore

Free polls from Pollhost.com

And it's a good thing the polls at Pollhost are free; I've been trying for the last half-hour to unscrew the HTML to make this appear properly on the page. Blah.

posted by Mitch Berg 1/22/2004 06:46:57 AM

Casualty Figures - US combat deaths in Iraq passed 500 this month. That passing was noted with somnolent portent by many commentators - and shrill glee by many candidates.

Robert H Reid puts it in context:
Iraq casualty figures are small compared with the horrific bloodletting of some of America's past conflicts. About 19,000 American soldiers died in one month alone in the Battle of the Bulge in World War II, a conflict in which more than 290,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines were killed in action.

An estimated 620,000 Americans - both northerners and southerners - died in the Civil War, America's bloodiest conflict. More than 58,000 U.S. troops lost their lives in Vietnam, both in combat and from non-battle causes.

Nevertheless, the rising death toll after 10 months of military operations in Iraq is significant, especially in a country whose public traditionally has little appetite for their sons and daughters dying in battle in distant, unfamiliar lands.

The United States aborted its participation in an international peacekeeping operation in Somalia after 18 U.S. troops were killed in a battle in the capital, Mogadishu, with forces loyal to warlord Mohamed Farah Aidid.

Former President Ronald Reagan pulled U.S. peacekeepers out of Lebanon after a suicide truck bomber killed 241 Marines and other service members at Beirut's airport in 1983.

After U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War ended in 1973, U.S. presidents were loathe to commit American forces to protracted struggles in foreign lands without clear objectives and overwhelming chances for success.

However, U.S. antipathy to foreign military operations receded after a series of quick and relatively painless operations in places like Grenada in 1983 - with only 16 battle and non-combat deaths - and Panama in 1989, when 21 troops were killed.
One can't trivialize 500 dead Americans.

I guess the central question is, do you think the sacrifice accomplished anything? Many (not all) Democrats say "no", or more comically, "if our guy was in charge, we'd have gotten the same results with fewer/no deaths".
posted by Mitch Berg 1/22/2004 06:35:54 AM

The Fix - Dick Morris knows exactly why Mad How collapsed in Iowa:
What happened to Howard Dean? He was assassinated by Bill and Hillary with the assistance of Chris Lehane, the political hit man who first worked for Kerry and now backs Clark.
Desperate to keep control of the Democratic Party, the Clintons used their negative researchers and detectives to the ultimate and generated a story-a-day savaging Dean. The Vermont governor, not ready for prime time, cooperated by being thin-skinned, surly and combative. And now he is an artifact of history. The left (who had made Dean their darling) embraced Kerry (the original leftist) as their nominee. "
It'll be interesting, one day, to know the Clintons' influence in this race.

Read the whole thing, natch.
posted by Mitch Berg 1/22/2004 06:29:33 AM

Wednesday, January 21, 2004

Lies Heard In Passing - On MPR's Morning Edition this morning, Senator Mark Dayton was quoted saying that unemployment is the worst it's ever been.

Really?

Ever?

Worse than the depression (25%)?

Worse than the 1980 recession? (over 8%)?

Senator Dayton? Where do you get that ?
posted by Mitch Berg 1/21/2004 03:12:42 PM

A More Concise SOTU Summary - A friend on another listserve posted this summary of the State Of The Union:
Bush: "We big." (30 seconds of applause.) "We bad." (1 minute of applause.) "And we kick ass whenever we want." (1 minute standing ovation.) "We're getting bigger." (10 second applause.) "But not by using steriods, because those are bad." (30 second applause.) "Countries I once called 'evil' I am now calling 'dangerous regimes'." (45 second applause and foot stomping.) "Weapons I once called 'illegal and massively destructive' I am now calling 'dangerous'." (30 seconds of joyous shouting.) "And we will find some in Iraq." (1 minute of Republicans mooning Democrats while slapping their butt cheeks.) "You, congress, are to blame for spending too much money." (30 seconds of the audience in the gallery throwing feces at the congressmen.) "Peace, prosperity, and good times ahead if I stay your president." (Republicans all hold hands in a manly way and sing the national anthem.) "Thank you and God bless America." (1 minute of "Hail Ceasar!" then Senator Kennedy is tossed into the air and used as a giant beachball to the amusement of all.)
As good as any I've seen.
posted by Mitch Berg 1/21/2004 07:36:43 AM

State of The Union - Many, many bloggers - from Sullivan to Reding - covered the SOTU. I didn't watch, due to a prior commitment.

My second-hand impressions?
Not going wobbly on the war - good.
Going wobbly on spending - bad.
I have to confess; I was always torn about George W. Bush. Up through the convention, I supported Steve Forbes - and when it comes to economics, I still do.

Would Steve Forbes have reacted as well - maybe magnificently - to 9/11 as Bush did? Hard to say.

In some ways I echo Homer Hickam, author of October Sky, in a WSJ article cited on Medved today:
I don't agree with President Bush about everything but he's starting to remind me of Harry S. Truman. He gets with the program. You can argue with him about what he does and you might even be right, but you can't fault the man for getting out front and leading. That is, after all, what we hire our presidents to do.
And let's be honest - unless you're an ultra-left ostrich with your head buried in ~~Noam Chomsky's ass~~ the sand, that's what we need. It's wartime, and George W. Bush said "Damn the torpedoes", the world is a better and (shut up, Mad How) at least incrementally safer place now than it was two years ago.

What will be the long term consequences of all of this spending? As a conservative, it worries me. Bush in (hopefully) his second term will need to reel it in - and, without having to run for re-election, and especially with a rebounding economy to boost revenues, the deficit will go away eventually, just like it did for Clinton.

As a conservative, though, it is a little bitterly ironic; Bush really has been the anti-Clinton in his first term - fiscally very liberal (except for taxes), socially fairy conservative (although not nearly as much as some of his critics credit him for).

So I'd like to level out the social peaks and fill in the fiscal valleys, conservative-ily speaking.

On the other hand, Deacon from Powerline seemed much more impressed.
posted by Mitch Berg 1/21/2004 05:09:32 AM

Exit the Cackler - Katherine Lanpher is leaving MPR, apparently (so say Fraters) to go to New York to join Al Franken on the new Liberal ~~Titanic~~ talkradio network.

More on that - and I do mean "more on" - later.

This is from MPR's press release:
[MPR's News Veep] Bill Buzenberg praised Lanpher's performance as Midmorning host. "I can say that from the very start, whether listeners agreed or disagreed with her, they listened to her," he said. "The audience was engaged, and every guest had to be on his or her toes to share the microphone with Katherine.
Oh, Bill. Some guests had to be more "on their toes" than others. If you were presenting an opinion anywhere to the right of, say, Ellen Anderson, you had to be dancing en point, ready to field any permutation of out-of-context data, slur and innuendo.
She made compelling radio and was a fabulous host.
Compared to the somnolent fossils that host the crushing majority of public radio programs? I'll give that one to Buzenberg. Lanpher was more "compelling", in the same way that getting a root canal is "more compelling" than eating vanilla yogurt.
We will miss her laugh, her energy, her hard work, her vast intelligence and her indomitable spirit."
Contacts inside MPR tell me they won't miss her prima donna attitude - which should be a perfect fit on a liberal talk network...
Her wide-ranging knowledge and engaging conversational style are credited with significantly boosting listenership.
Quick - without looking it up, who hosted the mid-morning show before Lanpher?

Any guesses?

Anyone?

For that matter, who hosted "All Things Considered" before David "Audibly Volvo-owning" Molpus? Before that?

Lanpher is a powerful MPR personality because she has a personality. Irritating as it is was, it existed in a personality vacuum.

Now, about her future plans; do you hear that scratching sound? It's the sound of the ground below the bottom of the barrel being scraped.

You can tell a lot about the future of the supposed liberal talk radio network from Lanpher's hiring. If this is how far afield Leftnet has to go to find "talent", then it's a fair guess their "bench" behind Franken (himself a dismal choice for a marquee name) is as weak as the Milwaukee Brewers'.

Al Franken isn't as smart as Michael Medved, as charismatic as Rush Limbaugh, as much a train-wreck controversy magnet at Michael Savage, as connected with Fraters Libertas as Hewitt - and yet in all those areas, he stands head, shoulders and ankles above Lanpher.

In other words - don't take her label off her mail slot, Vice President Buzenberg. She may be back before you can dust it out.
posted by Mitch Berg 1/21/2004 03:04:16 AM

While We're On The Subject of Delusion - Going through Mark Gisleson's hilarious Babelogue entries, I counted the number of times he referred, directly or obliquely, to violent overthrow of the government. I've got three so far, and that's just last week.

And I wonder; how do you suppose Mark Gisleson stood on the Minnesota Personal Protection Act? Does he support Citizens for a ~~Supine~~ "Safer" Minnesota? Does every conversation about the Second Amendment begin and end with references to "Maodamned Knuckle-dragging Gun Nuts?"

I don't know, but I have my suspicions.

People who prate and gabble about overthrowing the government but oppose the citizen's right to own firearms are like guys who read Maxim for the pictures, but live on Krispy Kremes and Budweiser; there's a serious disconnect.
posted by Mitch Berg 1/21/2004 03:03:02 AM

What A Difference Two Days Makes - The City Pages' Steve "Don't Stop Believing" Perry on the Iowa Caucuses:
There is real electoral gold in going after the Bush gang directly and lustily. It already should have been evident from the successes of Howard Dean, but these people are extraordinarily slow to learn and predisposed to stick to the Republican Lite script. Iowa should demonstrate to anyone paying attention that anti-Bush sentiment runs broader and deeper than our pols and pundits have yet recognized.
Natch, it was written the day before the caucuses, which pretty well repudiated Dean...

...and Perry.

So let's see - if we right-bloggers are "Bloggers of Mass Deception", I guess the Babelogue family of "blogs" are WMDs - Wannabes of Mighty Delusion".
posted by Mitch Berg 1/21/2004 03:02:50 AM

Let Slip the Blogs of Love - - Instapundit notes the first known blog-induced marriage, and a number of dates that have started in the blogosphere.

I can contribute the dark side of the story, naturally.

A while ago, a friend tried to set me up for a blind date with a female friend of his.

We talked on the phone. Everything was hunky-dory. Maybe a little better, in fact.

Then, she googled me. And read my blog. And I got an email:
I just read your blog. I'm sorry, but I'm a good, peace-loving liberal. I could never date a conservative.

In addition, I support Citizens for a Safer Minnesota, and therefore I could never date someone with your beliefs on guns.
My response?
Hey, we all make mistakes. I was a liberal once, too.
Actually, I did send that.

I'm still grinning about it.

I'm also still very single.

Ah, well.
posted by Mitch Berg 1/21/2004 03:01:27 AM

The Dean Dance - Lileks' techno remix of Mad How's classic screeawwwp.

Soon to replace "Hamster Dance" on my kids' MP3 player.
posted by Mitch Berg 1/21/2004 03:00:09 AM

Tuesday, January 20, 2004

Sublime? Meet Ridiculous - The City Pages Steve Perry straddles reality in today's Bush Wars.

On the one hand:
Tuesday morning’s conventional wisdom got one thing right. The biggest beneficiary of the whole pageant was Edwards, largely by virtue of his being neither of the main things Kerry is: a Boston Brahmin stiff ticketed for burial in the South, and an already failed one-time frontrunner.
So far, so good.

But then:
(Yes, Kerry’s a war hero--which might forestall certain kinds of attacks from the Bush camp, but hardly looks like a marquee attraction in a race defined by the economy and by widespread opposition to a war that Kerry supported.)
It occurs to me - Perry probably is referring to widespread opposition among the Democrat base.

Which is fine. Campaign on it. See how it plays in Peoria in ten months.
posted by Mitch Berg 1/20/2004 09:04:44 PM

Patriot Survey - AM1280 The Patriot - the Twin Cities "other" conservative talkradio station, featuring Hewitt, Medved, Ingraham and the rest of the Salem Radio lineup - is taking an online survey.

Check it out. Vote for more local programming.

These online polls frequently don't get a lot of traffic - a few votes can go a long way.
posted by Mitch Berg 1/20/2004 05:41:51 PM

Trying To Forget Your Generation - Kondracke in Roll Call via Drudge:
"Here's a harrowing pair of facts for Democrats: In 60 years, no Democrat has ever won the presidency without carrying the youth vote. And right now President Bush's approval rating among 18- to 29-year-olds is 62 percent, higher than his nationwide rating. Top Republican strategists admit that the youth vote is fluid, but right now the trends are all in their direction, which they hope is a harbinger not only for 2004, but also a possible longer-term party realignment."

A Bush campaign official said, "It's called the theory of political socialization. Who are the most Democratic people in America? It's the over-65 age group. Why? Because the two presidents they knew best were Franklin Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover. And who are the most Republican? People in their 40s, who came of age in the last two years of Jimmy Carter and the first two years of Ronald Reagan. If your politics were being formed during the last two years of Bill Clinton and the first two years of George Bush, there's a fairly good chance that we'll have your support."

Kondracke writes, "It seems impossible that a generation reared on free-love television and rap music, a generation far more tolerant of ethnic diversity and homosexuality than its elders, could support the GOP, whose base in anchored in the religious right. In fact, Democratic theorists such as Ruy Teixeira, John Judis and Stan Greenberg look upon the expanded role of minorities, cosmopolitan regions and diversity-minded young people to produce an 'emerging Democratic majority' through the force of demography.

"But, at the moment, the numbers support the view of GOP leaders that young people are trending Republican because they like Bush."

posted by Mitch Berg 1/20/2004 05:17:54 PM

Flapping Through History - Via Sullivan -Churchill's parrot is still alive!:
"Her favourite sayings were 'F*** Hitler' and 'F*** the Nazis'. And even today, 39 years after the great man's death, she can still be coaxed into repeating them with that unmistakable Churchillian inflection.
Many an admiral or peer of the realm was shocked by the tirade from the bird's cage during crisis meetings with the PM.
But it always brought a smile to the war leader's face."
I had no idea parrots lived that long...
posted by Mitch Berg 1/20/2004 07:34:12 AM

Dean Falling Apart - Just saw Mad How on the Today Show.

He looks angry, defensive, petulant.

Not Presidential material.
posted by Mitch Berg 1/20/2004 07:24:54 AM

Blogs of Mass Deception - If you see Karl Rove hiding in your hedges, call 1-877-MOONBAT. Mark Gisleson is on the beat, and he needs your help.

The City Pages - the Twin Cities "alternative" weekly handout - has always slewed to both sides of a broad, dark line.

On the one hand, they've always had some of the best actual news reportage in town. They have some reporters who do some just plain good gumshoe reporting. And while things have slid a bit on Steve Perry's watch, the actual news operation at City Pages still does a generally good job.

We're not talking about news.

WARNING: ANECDOTE AHEAD: In the mid-eighties, where I was a fringe player in the Twin Cities music scene (back when there was a Twin Cities music scene), the word among local musicians was that there were four ways to get a write-up in the City Pages:
Be a classmate of a City Pages music critic.
Be on the short list for all the same parties the City Pages music critics went to.
Supply drugs for the City Pages music critics.
Provide sexual favors for the City Pages music critics.
In other words, the City Pages swerves between being a fairly decent newspaper, and a glorified college tabloid - one with occasional flashes of competence, even brilliance in news coverage - and quite a bunch of people stuck in in the "wannabe literary bad boy/grrl" phases of their lives.

Which brings us to Gisleson. In a Babelogue posting last week, among other rhetorical crimes, Gisleson slagged our Northern Alliance pals Fraters Libertas.

Fraters' Saint Paul slagged back.

You gotta feel sorry for Mark Gisleson. One day - actually, for fifteen years - he's running a little resume writing service. The next, he's off writing politics. And, shock of shocks, those peasants get uppity! Unlike the good old days, when writers just wrote, and readers just read, and a political analyst still got the respect they deserved, Maodammit, today the madding throng can not only publish on the web, but cut your rantings to pieces!

This is normally the part of the posting where I'd start fisking Gisleson. But with Mark, that'd be overkill. I'll let him fisk himself:
Richard Florida on the ?Creative Class War? and yes, he is talking about the arts, among other things like how the Right has convinced the creative community to work abroad where it?s friendlier [What? Artists moving overseas? That's never happened before!]... fringe lunatic base...I almost think Karl Rove is trying to lose so as to avoid the inevitable lamp post that awaits him if we have to resort to the other kind of regime change. ... Glenn ?Instahack? Reynolds at the head of the BMD* mob [That'd be "Blogs of Mass Deception". Gisleson made that up himself! ]...Bret Ellis intensity stuff about corpse-fucking Bill Clinton...pustulently corrupt administration...pretzel-choking, vacation-taking loser-in-chief!...the brown shirts [I hereby invoke Godwin's Law]... ...sarcastic God?s answer to an idiot?s prayer for a second Reagan. Well, that?s what they?ve got, up to and including the premature Alzheimer?s...
I feel sorry for Gisleson's keyboard. All that flying slobber is hell on the pads.

Funnier still, this exchange, filed before the Iowa Caucuses. Did you know that Karl Rove is not only behind the President - he's the driving force behind the Democrats, as well!:
As usual, maestro Karl's timing is impeccable: today's Des Moines Register story on Kerry is about taxes and energy policy. Tomorrow's Sunday headlines will be less kind. It's rank punditry on my part to say this kills Kerry, but I do fear that Rove has just dispatched one of his two most feared opponents [disingeuous paeon to Kerry's war record, written by someone who'd ordinarily spit on veterans, omitted] Can Karl Rove again steal what he cannot win honestly?
You know you're over the edge when Steve Perry serves as the voice of moderation:
Yeah, Drudge has certainly been entertaining the last few days. Only one problem: Without any major exceptions that I'm aware of, this is not Rove and the Republicans doing the "opposition research," as it's called. It's the Democrats themselves, most especially the Clark camp.
Read Gisleson's stuff, especially his unmoderated blog writing. Check out some of the links he cites - one dubious, "Indymedia"-caliber moonbat writer after another - and then check out his "Blogs of Mass Deception" crack. You be the judge.

Gisleson, from what I've read so far, is like one of those talking toys, where you pull the string to hear one of half a dozen predictable, recorded phrases. Call him "Mao-o-matic".

Call this praise with faint damnation - but the City Pages can do better. If Gisleson's writing were a resume, it'd go in the circular file on the first cut.
posted by Mitch Berg 1/20/2004 07:05:37 AM

Slumming It - The other day, I posted a link to Alfred Fingulin's "Gunshow Trash", as well as his "What Is Gunshow Trash" essay.

Almost as enlightening, surely, is reading what we're not - through the eyes of someone who used to think less complimentary things.

This is an LA Times article - registration required:
"I expected a dungeon full of men missing teeth and wearing T-shirts decorated with Confederate flags. Instead, I found a sunny, wood-paneled lobby and guys who looked like lawyers on their lunch break. "
Read the article - it's interesting, and heartening.

Here's what I've found in eight years of evangelizing concealed carry reform; you can convince the darnedest people of the merits of your Second Amendment advocacy, if you can just convince them that shooters are...people like them - and by that, I don't mean you need to buy a Volvo and start wearing free-range Alpaca.

The antis invariably see themselves as reasonable, educated, intelligent - and if you portray your case reasonably and intelligently, you have a shot at getting through, as did the hero in the article above.

Of course, many anti-gun sympathizers aren't reasonable, their education is flawed (let's not confuse "schooling" and education), and their intelligence - let's be polite here - isn't focused on this issue.
posted by Mitch Berg 1/20/2004 06:12:04 AM

The Good Liberal. The Bad Ruling. - Nat Hentoff writes about the Supreme Court's decision to let the McCain-Feingold Speech Rationing Law stand:
As Justice Anthony Kennedy, dissenting, wrote, by way of example, "[The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act] makes it a felony for an environmental group to broadcast an ad, within sixty days of an election, exhorting the public to protest a Congressman's impending vote to permit logging in national forests."

However, just as it was before this act was declared constitutional by one of the most mediocre Supreme Courts in our history, super-rich individuals, on their own, can spend any amount, at any time, from their personal funds, to advertise opposition to, or support of, any candidate in a national election—provided they do not contribute those funds directly to a political party or candidate.

Accordingly, George Soros—who is increasingly politically active and is determined to send George W. Bush back to Texas next year—now has more First Amendment rights, thanks to this McCain-Feingold "reform" law, than those of us who contribute to the ACLU or the National Rifle Association during those weeks and months when our voices count. These extra First Amendment rights can also be exercised by Bill Gates or another abundantly achieving capitalist.

Soros, moreover, is additionally enjoying his First Amendment right to take advantage of the recently organized 527 groups, named after the rules in Section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code. These groups are less regulated than the advocacy groups for the nonrich, which are instructed by the new "reform" law as to when they can and cannot advertise on radio and TV.
Yet another of life's rich ironies - the Democrats, putative spokespeople for "the little guy", just disenfranchised that little guy a little more.
posted by Mitch Berg 1/20/2004 05:55:19 AM

Monday, January 19, 2004

Note to Democrats - Please, please, please chase Jimmy Carter's endorsement.

Thank you.
posted by Mitch Berg 1/19/2004 07:54:11 AM

Zvi Mazel Tov - Israel's ambassador to Sweden goes berserk, smashes art exhibit:
"The art installation, called Snow White and located in the museum's courtyard, featured a basin filled with red water, designed to look like blood.

A sailboat with the name Snow White floated on the water, and placed like a sail was a photo of a smiling Hanadi Jaradat, the female lawyer who blew herself up in the Haifa suicide bombing attack in October which killed 21 Israelis.
"For me it was intolerable and an insult to the families of the victims. As ambassador to Israel I could not remain indifferent to such an obscene misrepresentation of reality," the ambassador told Swedish news agency TT.

According to museum director Kristian Berg, the ambassador went berserk in front of the 400 specially-invited guests when he saw the piece.

"He pulled out the plugs and threw one of the spotlights into the fountain which caused the entire installation to short-circuit and made it totally life-threatening," he told TT.
Y'know, I'm all about artistic freedom.

And sometimes, art offends public sensibility. Sometimes that's a good thing.

But there's something about some artists - especially in places like Sweden and Minneapolis, where much art is heavily subsidized (disclaimer: I don't know if "Snow White" is subsidized) - that fairly defines "self-indulgence"; they go beyond challenging community perceptions, and swerve past insensitivity into the indulgence of hatred.
One of the two artists who created the work, Israeli-born Dror Feiler, told AFP the ambassador was "totally unreasonable and undiplomatic" and would not listen to his explanations.

"He said he was ashamed that I was a Jew," Feiler said. "We see this as an offensive assault on our right to express our thoughts and feelings."
And what were those thoughts and feelings?
The other artist, Feiler's Swedish wife Gunilla Skoeld Feiler, told daily Expressen that the work was "not a glorification of the suicide bomber."
Here's something artists - especially the habitually obtuse ones - might want ot remember; when you're "expressing your thoughts and feelings" about things in which people are heavily emotionally invested, like their religion (Serrano will never do lunch in Vatican City again) or, say, ongoing eliminationist anti-semitism, don't be surprised if they "express" their feelings right back.

Mazel's only mistake - not calling his actions "performance art."

Powerline has four excellent pieces on the subject - start here and work your way back.
posted by Mitch Berg 1/19/2004 06:55:26 AM

The Pundit Confesses - Sullivan admits it - the pundits are all wrong, again:
What a hilarious period for punditry (and I include myself). I don't know a soul who, only a couple weeks ago, predicted a four-way tie in Iowa. And yet the voters are making their minds up regardless of us media masturbators. What gall!
That's right - a month ago, Edwards was circling the drain, Dean was a shoe-in, and Kerry was an ongoing joke.

The turning point?
The minute Al Gore endorsed Howard Dean, I instinctively opined that the Dean candidacy was finished. And, sure enough, as soon as Gore touched the Dean campaign, things began to go wrong. I should have trusted my instinct: Al Gore is always political death. Now all we need is to find out whom Johnny Apple thinks will win, and we'll be all set. C'mon, Johnny. Put us out of our misery.
Misery, Schmisery. This is great entertainment - both the ongoing rhubarb in Iowa, and the meltdown of the pundits.

The most-common opinion I see in the blogosphere seems to involve polls in Iowa being wrong, and Dean walking away with it in the end.

The most interesting "intellectual" exercise so far: everything so far points, in the event of a Bush victory, to a Hillary!/Gore showdown in '08. What on earth can the GOP do to counter the limitless free publicity the Dems'll get from what will turn out to be the political grudge match of the century? If the Hillary!/Gore grudge slam didn't exist, the Dems would have to invent it.

It's going to be a fun Monday.
posted by Mitch Berg 1/19/2004 06:24:46 AM

Tips For Churches - I've been casting about for a new congregation for the past year or so. I've gone to a bunch of different congregations, and compiled quite a picture of the types of churches that would seem to be available these days.

Bear in mind: I'm a protestant Christian, who believes in the fundamentals of the Christian faith without being a "fundamentalist". That narrows out a lot of denominations, but in the great panoply of Protestantism, still leaves quite a few. I happen to be a Presbyterian - a denomination that, to me, combines belief in the fundamentals of the faith without tossing in a lot of extraneous dogma or belief in things that, to the best of my knowledge, Christ never talked about (and with all respect due to my friends who believe in presdestination, that'd be one of them), a denomination that lives the dictum in Corinthians, that people are of faith have different gifts, and whatever they are, they're all blessings. And while a lot of churches that focus on the purely spiritual aspects of faith are doing very well these days, the Presbyterians focus on the spiritual, real-world and intellectual sides of faith - all three of which my faith craves. The purely spirit-based churches (you know who you are) leave me just as unsatisfied as would, say, Christian Science.

So I'm a Presbyterian. Don't try to "save" me.

This post isn't about theology, though. Because while theology involves developing an intellectual interest in the study of faith, and like all things intellectual involves give and take and learning, this post is about things that are non-negotiable when searching for a denomination.

To wit - my short list of things that will, if not disqualify a church, certainly count as serious demerits:
Pre-recorded accompaniments - I would much rather listen to someone gamely hack away at an out-of-tune piano accompanying a singer than listen to a canned (and invariably cheesy) accompaniment on tape. Hearing that pre-recorded, MIDI-based sound over the PA is a cringe moment.
Contemporary Hymns - The Protestant church has a 400 year history of some of the most beautiful music in history, music that glorifies God in a way that few other works of art in any civilization ever have. By all means, retire it in favor of treacly tripe that wouldn't pass muster with Kenny G.
Bad Gospel - Don't get me wrong; white WASPs from Roseville can do spirituals - if they make a commitment to learning the style as well as the notes. Unfortunately, very few suburban protestant congregations do this. Unfortunately, every lilywhite, usually-heavily-geriatric congregation feels compelled to celebrate "Black History Month" by rolling out an assortment of spiritual warhorses. By the way - if you're going to do a gospel number, make sure that either everyone claps, and claps to the beat - or nobody does. While one choir member clapping half-heartedly might gladden the Lord's heart, having 15 people doing it, and doing it without self-consciousness, must certainly gladded it more..
Cut the Study-Group Buzzphrases - You know what I'm talking about - the catch phrases for concepts that people bandy about in church seminars. Hearing "Contagious Christianity" in a sermon once is OK. Hearing it 10 times in a sermon is not only very nearly a "walk out" offense - it's also usually a fair sign I won't find many contagious Christians in the sanctuary.
Can The Politics - Among urban, mainline protestant churches, there seems to be an assumption that Paul Wellstone was a good guy, if a bit conservative. Of course there are exceptions. I just never seem to find them. Presbyterians in particular seem to have drawn many of their current generation of ministers from the unctuous cream of the late-sixties seminary pool. Open note to the PCUSA - Many of your parishioners voted for Bush. You might want to watch the condescension.
Importing Lutheran Preachers - Don't get me wrong; Lutherans are fine people, and there are some excellent Lutheran preachers. But the Presbyterian seems to put a much higher premium on ministers who can deliver a good, interesting, thought-provoking sermon. In the Presbyterian Church, you tend to find very few ministers who read sermons, word-for-world, off a typewritten sheet. The church I attended yesterday was led by a substitute minister from an area Lutheran congregation, who read a sermon that sounded like a recycled term paper from seminary. He read exactly as he must have typed; every time he flubbed a word, he went back and re-read it, correctly.
Hi, There - Every mainline protestant church is begging for members. More and more of them are preaching to emptier and emptier pews on Sunday morning. So - if you see a guy wandering around the narthex with a couple of kids, or standing with a cup of post-service coffee, maybe you should send someone over to say hi and see what he's doing here, and maybe answer a few questions. You might not get a second chance.
Maybe God is calling me to be a heckler...
posted by Mitch Berg 1/19/2004 06:06:23 AM

Reading Material - Twin Cities writer, firearms instructor and Second Amendment activist Joel Rosenberg is one of those people that should be blogging.

From his website comes this piece, about the biggest "gun control" issue to face the legislature this year - the Range Protection bill. This is an obscure bill, protecting and opening up existing shooting ranges in the metro area (which are something of an endangered species, due largely to pressure from anti-gun activists), but very much worth supporting.

But the most interesting of all is his piece about his ongoing struggle to convince the management of the Wedge Coop - a relentlessly-PC coop in the heart of The Wedge, one of Minneapolis' most over-the-edge lefty neighborhoods. If you're a concealed carry activist, the piece is well worth reading as a primer on carrying on this battle in your own worlds.

Read it!
posted by Mitch Berg 1/19/2004 06:04:21 AM

Dean Eats Toad - Alfred Fingulin has his commentary on advertising in Iowa. It's on Gunshow Trash, and since his permalinks are a little temperamental, I'm going to beg his indulgence and just post the whole thing:
Howard Dean looks like he ate a live toad, enjoyed it, and thinks you should too.

A stark white background highlights the candidate. It's a corporate white guy in gray business shirt and burgundy tie. Is he announcing more layoffs?

He speaks of power, of who runs America, "corporate special interests and Washington insiders..." He looks like one. "...or the American people." Now I'm confused.

His face begins filling the screen. "I'm..." and the waddles on his neck spill over his collar. Is this Jabba the Hutt? "...Howard Dean."

His face gets bigger. "My campaign doesn't just talk about change. We're empowering the American people..." Every time management says "empower" they don't and they get in your face about it.

And he gets bigger. I'm worried. More layoffs must be coming.

"...so that together we can provide health care for everyone..." He'll make it affordable by laying off hospital staff? "...and government that works for people again." No layoffs coming to his department.

"That's what's a stake on Monday. Please don't stay home, because this time it's too important."

Howard Dean wanted to get out the vote. He got me to post some more resumes on Monday.
I'm really hoping he wins in Iowa. It'll be more fun beating Dean - and especially his supporters.
posted by Mitch Berg 1/19/2004 06:02:33 AM

Judge the Book By Its Sound- I spent 13 years in radio, off and on, at eight different stations. I was always amazed at the extent to which people almost never look like they sound.

The examples of people who don't look as "good" in person as they sound on the air are, of course, legion - the hunky-sounding morning guy who's really a 400-pound homunculus, the mid-day lady who sounds so hot but is, in fact, so not. Better example - Lorna Benson, much-lamented on the MPR's edition of "All Things Considered" after being kicked to the curb in favor of David "Audibly Volvo-driving" Molpus, who sounded like a 55-year-old prematurely gray spinster with an MA in Victimization Studies who wore all free-trade alpaca, but was in fact babe-o-licious.

There are, of course people who sound exactly like they look; Tim Russell, Garrison Keillor, Larry King, and Kris Adams (long-ago mid-day riot-grrl at KDWB).

However, as Fraters remind us, Terry Gross looks exactly as she sounds.

Which reminds me - I need to find the audio of Terry Gross' classic interview with KISS's bass player, frontman and famed sexual triathlete Gene Simmons, who spent the whole interview teasingly propositioning the relentlessly dry Gross:
Terry Gross: Um, just one more question before we wrap up.

Gene Simmons: As many as you want.

Terry Gross: I would like to think that the personality you've presented on our show today is a persona that you've affected as a member of KISS, something you do on stage, before the microphone, but that you're not nearly as obnoxious in the privacy of your own home or when you're having dinner with friends.

Gene Simmons: Fair enough. And I'd like to think that the boring lady who's talking to me now is a lot sexier and more interesting than the one who's doing NPR. You know, studious and reserved, and -- I bet you're a lot of fun at a party.
It was easily the best ten minutes I ever spent listening to Terry Gross. Read the whole transcript - it's hilarious.
posted by Mitch Berg 1/19/2004 06:00:02 AM

Kossed - John at Freespeech.com notices an admirable trait in the Daily Kos:
"Kos writes an excellent post about the fact that people change their mind over time.
"And so on. The problem with those quotes is that they don't allow for context. They don't allow for humor. They don't allow for opinions to evolve. I've changed my mind on any number of issues over the past ten years. Do we want someone whose beliefs are completely static over time? I don't. I want people who reevaluate their beliefs on the basis of new evidence. Yet any opinion shift is met with cries of 'waffler!'
"
I, for one, am delighted. Clearly, recognizing the and acknowledging the complexity of human relationships and the ways opinions evolve, Kos will stop dredging up old quotes from conservatives in an effort to demonstrate their hypocrisy..
Right?"
Alleluiah!

I'll be monitoring Kos for evidence of this change of behavior.

For those who refuse to read Kos, here's the story; Kos, and the coterie of bloggers that lap the jam from between his toes, now say that Clark's waffling on Iraq is a matter of "context".

The correct response, of course, is that the motivations for any action can be completely altered if you are creative enough in presenting the "context" in which the action occurred. Any good can be rendered evil, any evil can be rendered acceptable. Thomas Jefferson's achievements are rendered (to some) moot by the context of slavery (if you effectively-enough manage the parts of the context that are considered, and how). I've heard intellectuals pardon Lenin, given the "context" of the times (according to them - and that context never seems to encompass the Gulag).

Manipulating "context" enough makes meaningful communication impossible. Which is why the likes of Kos are trying to drown out criticism of Clark's flip-flop with carefully-managed "context".
posted by Mitch Berg 1/19/2004 06:00:00 AM